Free Reunion (A Psychological Suspense with Murder, Mystery and the Paranormal) by Jeff Bennington Page A

those weird little twisters,” said another.
    “That’s right boys, we just encountered a straight-line wind,” Bryan added, disguising what might have really happened. “Straight-line winds are usually pretty strong and come out of nowhere. Now listen, you boys better head home. I’m gonna take a look around and make sure there isn’t any damage to your friend, or the school. Got it?”
    They answered, “Yes, sir,” and then ran away.
    Bryan reached down, grabbed the teenager’s hand and helped him up. The lanky boy dusted himself off and stared at Bryan as if asking a question with his eyes.
    “What’s your name?” asked Bryan.
    “Gavin.”
    The boy paused and continued staring. Bryan began to feel uncomfortable with the boy’s uncanny demeanor.
    “You saw it, didn’t you?” asked Gavin.
    “Saw what?” Bryan preferred avoidance as a first defense.
    “The light. Did you see it?”
    Bryan took off his hat, rubbed his eyes and looked back through the glass doors. With one hand on his hip, he took a deep breath and admitted, “I think I saw something. I won’t swear that I saw a light per se, but I saw something. I don’t know what it was, but I could see it in your body language—I could tell from your eyes that there was something there, something coming at you.” He put his hat back on. “Do you want to tell me what you saw?”
    Still somewhat startled, the boy spoke in a monotone that revved up to a near panic. “I…I, don’t know what it was exactly. At first, when I looked inside the school…I was just curious, because I felt a little funny standing that close. You know? I was feeling kinda scared, like the hairs on my neck were standing up. You know? Then all of a sudden, I saw this figure way down the hall. It was…sort of milky, sort of cloudy, fading like a ghost. I swear I thought it turned to look at me and that’s when I really freaked out. The more I stared, the more I felt anger coming into my mind, like it was controlling me, like it hated me! That’s when it started running. It moved so fast that all I could see was light!” The boy exhaled. “Does that sound crazy to you? Do you think I’m crazy? I’ve never seen anything like that before. I’ve never experienced anything like that.” He paused to catch his breath. He looked traumatized, a look Bryan knew all too well.
    “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to go home too,” said Gavin. “I’m not feeling so good.”
    “That’s fine. But before you go, I want you to know that I did see a dim light coming at you. I think they call that an orb. After the force blew through you, I saw it go back inside.” Bryan felt chills just thinking about the whole experience.
    “What’s an orb?”
    “Well, they say it’s the visible energy of a…a ghost, if you believe in that sort of thing.”
    “Do you believe in ghosts?” the boy asked.
    “I’m not sure.” Bryan stared back at the school, questioning his own beliefs.
    “Well I’m not gonna stand here and wait for that thing to come back. I gotta go.” The teen grabbed his basketball and ran off. He never looked back.
    Bryan inspected the entrance to see if he could find any trace evidence of what had just occurred, but found nothing. He tried to pull the doors open, leaving room for the possibility that someone was pulling a prank. They were locked, and he knew that no one had come in or out of the building while he was there. For Deputy Jacobs, this would go down as one of the many unexplainable events that fell through the cracks of official paperwork. Plenty of good cops had witnessed the surreal or paranormal on occasion, only to let their experience fall flat on history, leaving no trace of its occurrence for fear of professional ridicule. Bryan knew the unwritten code. He would later confess to what he saw, but only under extreme coercion.
    As Bryan continued the investigation, he put his nose to the glass door to look inside. The orb sighting aroused his